The Terrible Twos
Posted on 08.11.08 to Clare, Pets by Joan
Being an only child, it’s quite unfortunate that her only playmates are the dogs. Unfortunate for the dogs, that is. But Thunder is such a darling to humour her when she plays with him. These photos were taken a couple of weeks back.
Someone flicked the switch this weekend, and turned my once charming daughter into this wailing, ‘NO-NO-NO’ yelling machine. I think she’s going through the ‘The Terrible Twos‘, but I hate repeating that every time she acts up, because it just seems that I am making up excuses for her bad behaviour. But really, she’s suffering from a major case of it.
As the article suggests, oppositional behaviour was the theme of the weekend. She yelled NO-NO-NO at everything I wanted her to do. She ignored my requests. She smacked my hand when I told her off. And boy, did she wail her lungs out when I had to extricate her from my neighbour’s house and trying to get her to return my neighbour’s kid, Ezra’s, balloon.
I’m stepping up on my discipline, letting her know that when I say NO, I really mean NO. Other times, I let her express herself and allow her to do what she wants within reason, since she’s in a decision-making phase.
Other than that though, there were little moments when she turned back into a little darling, which was absolutely wonderful. I also saw bits of her strong-willed and gung-ho personality: we were at the playground at Paragon with Ezra. There were plenty of much older kids around, being rather rough. But Clare held her own, and had a really good time climbing up and going down the slide. She even did a little ‘YAY!’ at the end of each round, with hands raised.
And! Because she hadn’t seen Ezra in a couple of weeks, she was supremely excited to see her on Sunday. So excited that she climbed the gate of the house, so that she can reach the handle to open it! I’ve got a trained monkey in my hands.
